Afif al-Bizri

Afif al-Bizri (1914-28 January 1994) was Chief of Staff of the Syrian army from 1957 to 1959. al-Bizri was a highly influential communist military officer who transformed the Syrian military into a bastion of pan-Arabism and socialism, and he spearheaded the creation of the United Arab Republic before falling out with Gamal Abdel Nasser and being fired from the military. He participated in the 1961 coup which ended the UAR, but he was never allowed to return to the military.

Biography
Afif al-Bizri graduated from the Military Academy of Damascus in 1935 and pursued advanced military training in France, where he met several French Communist Party members and became a communist sympathizer. In 1941, he took part in Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's Iraqi revolt against the British, and he returned to Syria after the uprising was quelled. In 1945, he deserted the French Army to join the Syrian independence rebels, for which he was deported to Lebanon. After Syria became independent in 1946, he returned to the military and served in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. During the mid-1950s, al-Bizri started advocating a socialist ideology in the army, and he advocated for the United Arab Republic with Egypt and spread pan-Arabism through the military's ranks. In 1957, he accused several anti-Nasserist politicians of conspiring with Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon to assassinate Nasserist and socialist leaders such as Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, Akram al-Hawrani, Khalid Bakdash, and himself. In 1958, he participated in the talks which led to the UAR's establishment, but he fell out with Gamal Abdel Nasser over Nasser's appointment of Abdel Hakim Amer as Governor of Syria. In June 1959, Nasser dismissed al-Bizri from his position and banned the Syrian Communist Party, fearing the communists' influence over the military. al-Bizri went on to support the 1961 coup which brought down the UAR, but he was refused a position in the army due to his history. He died in Damascus in 1994 at the age of 79.